FREE WILL

PROMPT: This following piece started as an attempt to refresh my brain on the tarot cards and deepen my understanding by taking each card and attempting to write a piece of fiction around it.

I was making some efforts with the major arcana and this story started as an attempt at card # 6 The Lovers.

TIME: I started with a timer for 20 mins.

However, I took a short break and kept thinking about it and sat back down and finished a first draft in about 90 mins.

I came back and cleaned it up a day or two later.

All told it took two to two and a half hours.

UPDATE: September 2023 - I submitted this piece to a Writing Challenge that was put out within my writing group. The theme was 'Summer Lovin' (Romance/Erotica) and I won !

Warning: sexual content

FREE WILL 

“Free will.”

Although to be fair, these weren’t the exact words used. 

At that time, words were still new and ever-expanding. Awkward and amused ‘they’ (it was just the two of them) tried on and adapted sounds that acted as labels for the infinite bounty all around them.

Even themselves.

At first, he had been what could best be defined as ‘He’ or ‘Him’ and she was ‘She’ or ‘Her’.

Recently though, slight changes to the sounds they used to convey one another had shifted and ‘She’ was now imbued with something closer to ‘His’ and 'He' was now ‘Hers’.

This had started some time ago the first time their lips had touched and then stayed touching; lingering, searching, wanting more.

‘Want’ was something foreign to both of them. They sensed what this ‘more’ was, what it could be, even though they didn’t exactly ‘know.’

 They also knew it was forbidden, this ‘more’ this ‘want.’ They couldn’t be sure how this understanding was so clear but they knew. 

Then came the day she had been sitting under the tree bearing the red fruit. The red fruit she had known she was not supposed to touch. 

The snake had come before her, its shining skin in beautiful mottled shades of green, its eyes golden and full of questions. So many complex quandaries she could barely get her mind around them, couldn’t keep up.

Cognitive function was even more rudimentary and floundering than it is now. With each question, she felt locked doors in her mind being flung open.   

She was overwhelmed but at the same time when the serpent stopped its inquires her mind ached for more. And in the silence, her mind began to come up with its own.

Eventually, the serpent gazed up into the tree.

“That red fruit looks delicious. I can’t reach it. Would you get us one to share?” it asked. 

“We can’t,” she had said with no pause or reflection, merely a shrug.

“What do you mean? I thought this garden was yours?”

“It is,” she had said, a little indignant. 

“Then is that fruit not yours as well.”

“But that fruit is not to be touched.”

“But I thought you had free will,” the serpent hissed tilting its head in pure surprise.

“We do…” 

“How is that free will?”

She had just blinked unable to form a response. Its eyes stared into hers. It coiled and uncoiled in a back-and-forth motion that seemed to mimic her tangled, chaotic thoughts. 

They said nothing more but its golden eyes never left hers. 

She had left and had stumbled back to the cave where ‘Hers’ was and had fallen into his arms. He had held her, stroked her hair in that way he knew soothed her. She had explained, as best she could. Using the fragmented words they had to convey thoughts, questions there weren’t really words for yet until exhausted she had fallen asleep against ‘Hers’. 

Days passed. They had not spoken more of it. They both knew the other was avoiding the subject. She lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling of the cave in which they always slept. ‘Hers’ lay next to her on his side. His warm hand rested on her abdomen. She turned her face to his. 

The loop played over and over. Stuck. Relentless.

We have free will. 

But we can’t have the fruit. 

We have choice.

But we can’t. 

The right to ask, to know. 

But ‘no’.

Her fingers reached up and touched his cheek. His eyes opened. He blinked. He reached up and wiped at the strange new wetness that was suddenly falling down her cheeks. 

She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. His mouth pressed back his fingers trailing into her dark hair. When he went to pull away though as was the norm she pulled him back to her, her mouth demanding more of ‘Hers’. He hesitated only for a moment and quickly returned the demand. Her arms wrapped around him. Hot flesh to hot flesh. They explored each other's forms with endless curiosity measuring, noting every new sensation and filing away every response. When they finally joined as one their eyes locked, wide and amazed. They knew without words what the other was thinking; that they fit together with such utter perfection that it was as if they had been made as such but had been rendered apart somehow. She began to move. He began to move. Slow and uncertain. As they did their fingers untangled and continued to explore. The tempo of their movement began to build and then slow, again and again, in layer after layer until shuddering cries filled the cave. His and Hers, Hers and His. Her teeth marks gently marred his shoulder. His fingernail prints driven into her hips. 

They collapsed with ragged breaths, not quite separating, not quite ready to. 

He rolled her under him. His mouth taking hers again and hers giving back. His hips drove a final flurry of times seeming to drag the last traces of pleasure from where they hid deep in her. 

They separated, sated but somehow aware this need in them would rise again, would always return, would not rest. 

They both seemed to notice the change outside the cave at the same time. The pale, cheerful objects that always floated lightly across the sky slowly began to grow thick and heavy and they were suddenly in darkness. 

Not that they called it that. It was a first for them, this new kind of darkness that was similar to night but all grey and without stars. And while they had seen rain before, that water that seemed to bring the garden greater vibrance, it had never come down with such frightening force. They held each other tight as it seemed to grow in ferocity.

She jumped and let out a cry and he gripped her to him as a bright light cracked and bent at sharp angles downwards seeming to reach for the ground and was followed by a deafening roar and rumble they could feel to the very place they had recently been joined. 

She stood and tugged him deeper into the cave, not letting go of his hand, and led him to a spot around a bend where the outside sounds were muted. 

As they wrapped around each other once more she reached her arm out looking for something in the dimness. She pulled forth a perfect round piece of the red fruit. She looked him in the eyes as she took a bite. 

Her eyes widened as the wondrous new taste, a perfect balance of crisp, sharp and sweet, filled her senses. She began to chew. 

She noticed he was watching, mesmerized by her every movement and reaction until she swallowed. Then he leaned forward and took a bite too.